Kid Cupcake Creator Back in Business Thanks to Generous Donations

A month after her home cupcake business was needlessly shuttered by the local health department, an 11-year-old Illinois girl is getting her dream kitchen — one that will enable her to reopen her business without running afoul of the bureaucracy.

Until January 26, Chloe Stirling of Troy, Illinois, had been selling her homemade cupcakes to friends and family members and even donating some for fundraisers. On that day, the Belleville News-Democrat ran a story on Chloe’s business, Hey, Cupcake! The orders poured in.

The next day, the Madison County Health Department called the Stirlings and informed them that Hey, Cupcake! would be no more. No one had complained that Chloe’s cupcakes had made him sick; in fact, the glowing newspaper article and subsequent orders suggested just the opposite. But Chloe had failed to jump through the health department’s hoops by getting a permit and working out of a separate, commercial kitchen rather than her family’s kitchen, and so she was put out of business.

Chloe’s story received nationwide attention, including coverage by The New American.

“The support that she’s gotten from everywhere, all over the country, has been amazing,” Chloe’s mother, Heather Stirling, told the News-Democrat February 27.

On that day, at an assembly at Triad Middle School, Chloe, her parents, and her fellow students watched Chloe’s appearance on Rachael Ray. The show had been taped in New York three days earlier, with Chloe and her parents meeting not just Ray but also Buddy Valastro of TLC’s Cake Boss. Ray and Valastro presented Chloe with “a full suite of GE kitchen appliances,” the paper reported.

Now the only problem was where to put all the new appliances. Fortunately, Chloe’s father’s employer came to the rescue.

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